


Superhero in Training

by Lbilover



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Humor, M/M, Superheroes, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 06:11:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9165550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/pseuds/Lbilover
Summary: Wherein Sean is tied to the railroad tracks and faces certain death, until he is rescued by a superhero in training.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 'Superhero in Training' was inspired by the scene in Elijah's TV show 'Wilfred' that you see in the animated gif at the beginning of the story. It just cried out for a story to go with it, and the idea of Elijah as an apprentice superhero was too fun not to write.

~*~

Such things didn't happen in this day and age. Heck, they didn't happen in _any_ day and age. But Sean was, indubitably, tied to the railroad tracks, like whatshername in the old black and white silent movies. Only this wasn't a movie, it was real life, it was in full color, and Sean sure as fuck wasn't silent. 

"Help!" he yelled at the top of his lungs as he struggled against his bonds. "Can anyone hear me? Help!" His throat was raw from screaming, but it would hardly matter once the next Acela express came along, which should be any minute. As if on cue, Sean heard the distant toot of a train whistle.

Oh fuck. Oh FUCK! Sean redoubled his efforts, but that sleazy sonuvabitch Noble must study knot tying when he wasn't masterminding a drug cartel. There was no way Sean could free himself with both arms and legs tightly bound. All he'd succeeded in doing was rearranging his clothes and giving himself an uncomfortable wedgie.

"HELP! HELP!" he screamed. But other than a couple of flies and a random bee buzzing around a motley clump of Queen Anne's lace, there was no one to hear him.

 _I'm going to die. In a few minutes I'm going to shuffle off this mortal coil forever. End my existence as the railway equivalent of roadkill without ever having won so much as a single Pulitzer Prize for journalism. This sucks._

Strangely, Sean's life wasn't flashing before him as was reputed to happen when you were about to meet your maker. Maybe because it seemed so completely unreal, the imminence of his death, as if it was happening to someone else, not him. _Big mistake, Astin. Believe it. Because it's going to become very, very real very, very soon. As in right now._

A glint of sunlight on silver proved to be the train coming into view, rounding a bend a couple miles away. Sean's blood ran cold, and he redoubled his efforts to free himself, wriggling like a frantic worm trying to escape a fisherman's hook.

"Fuck! I'm sorry I'm so late," said a voice from above him. "It's this stupid cape. It keeps sliding around and tripping me up."

Sean went limp as a gutted herring and stared up in shock and amazement at the young man who had suddenly appeared, as if by magic, beside him. It turned out someone _had_ heard his cries for help after all. But what on earth did his rescuer mean by 'I'm sorry I'm so late'? 

The young man knelt beside Sean, took out a pocket knife and started sawing at Sean's bonds. "I'll earn 100 points for this," he said conversationally. "And that means just 40 more until I qualify for a real superhero cape, not one of these cheap shit ones." He indicated the red plastic cape around his shoulders that to Sean's bewildered eyes looked exactly like the type used in beauty parlors. Add to that jeans, a gray polo shirt, Converse sneakers, and dark sunglasses with orange frames, and Sean concluded that his rescuer was a nut job, some do-gooder who fancied himself Superman or Spiderman or some such superhero. But Sean didn't give a shit who the guy was role playing as long as he role played Sean out of his bonds before the train arrived.

"Of course, they could deduct points for a sloppy technique," the young man continued, still calmly sawing, "but that'll likely depend on who reviews my performance." A strand of rope across Sean's chest gave way, and he moved the knife to the next length. "I sure hope it isn't Batman. I'm fucking tired of him hitting on me."

The train was looming closer and closer, and Sean didn't see any chance that he'd be rescued before it transformed him and his three-bricks-shy-of-a-load companion into human pancakes. The rails vibrated under him and the locomotive blew its whistle again, the sound shrill and menacing.

"Look, you'll never get me freed in time. There's no point in both of us getting squashed like bugs. Leave me, and..." Sean choked up, "thanks for trying, anyway."

"Oh, that won't be necessary. I appreciate the thought, though."

Sean broke out in a cold sweat. Desperately he yanked one pinioned arm free and tried to push the young man out of the way. It was like pushing on an adamantine wall. "For pity's sake, are you trying to commit suicide?" he cried. The train was only a few hundred yards away now, a thundering death machine. "Move, damn you!"

The young man didn't seem to hear him. He stopped what he was doing, raised a hand to his sunglasses and lowered them slightly on the bridge of his nose so he could peer over the rim. Then he stared unblinking at the onrushing train... and it stopped. There was no squealing of brakes, no gradual slowing, the train had simply stopped.

Sean blinked. He blinked again. The locomotive was barely fifty feet away, and Sean could clearly see the conductor through the window. He had his left hand raised and his head turned to the right and he didn't move a muscle but remained stolidly in that pose as if he were playing a game of 'Statues'. 

"See?" the young man said cheerfully, pushing his sunglasses back into place. "Nothing to worry about." He resumed cutting Sean's bonds. "They won't move again until I say so."

Sean couldn't tear his gaze away from the conductor, frozen in mid-gesture. "How did you _do_ that?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"With my super power. Well, one of my super powers, but it's my best one by far. Nobody else has it - I'm unique," he said proudly, then his face fell. "Of course, we're not supposed to use our super powers unless it's absolutely necessary. I'm sure I'll lose points for that." He sighed. "If this stupid cape hadn't kept tripping me up, I'd have been in time to cut you loose without stopping the train."

Sean's chest was free now, and the young man tackled the rope around Sean's ankles. "Almost there," he said.

Sean levered himself up into a sitting position and shook out his tingling arms that were half-numb from being pinioned for so long. He wanted to protest the mention of super powers, but with the evidence before him, how could he? _Some_ thing had stopped that train. "What are you called? If you have super powers," it felt ridiculous to say it aloud, "then you must have a name."

But the young man shook his head. "Not yet. I'm still a superhero in training. I won't have an official name until my apprenticeship is up."

"Then what do people call you?" 

"A pain in the ass, mostly," he said, still with unimpaired good humor. "I'm hoping to be called Medusa Man, 'cause I can make stuff stand still with just a look. Don't you think that's a good name?"

Sean couldn't believe he was sitting on some railroad tracks discussing superhero names, of all things. "Sure."

"It'll have to be approved by the Superhero Naming Board, of course, but they're usually pretty cool about giving you the name you want."

 _The Superhero Naming Board?_ Maybe he _was_ dead and this was all part of the afterlife. Except he still had an uncomfortable wedgie and his throat felt like he'd swallowed shards of glass.

"Okay, all done," Medusa-Man-to-Be said as the last rope fell away. He closed the knife and slid it into his back jeans pocket. "Here, let me help you up."

Very matter-of-factly he did so, and Sean was grateful for his support because, like his arms, his legs were half-numb and tingling painfully as the circulation returned to them. "Thanks, uh, Medusa Man," he said, and discreetly pulled at the seat of his trousers to free the wedgie. "I appreciate all your help." That sounded kind of lukewarm - ungenerous, even, after what the young man had done. "I can't tell you how grateful I am - I owe you my life."

"No thanks are necessary." He helped Sean across the tracks and up a short bank. Then he lowered his sunglasses and stared hard at the train. Instantly it came to life and thundered away toward its destination. 

Sean tried to catch a glimpse of the young man's eyes, but he was too late. The obscuring black lenses were already back in place.

"Listen, I hate to run," the young man said, "but there's a kitten stuck up a tree that needs rescuing. It's only 5 points, but every little bit helps." Then he thrust his right arm into the air, declaimed, "For Truth, Justice and the American wayyyyyyy!" and set off at a flat run, the beauty parlor cape fluttering madly behind him.

Sean watched him go, but he knew this wasn't the last time he'd encounter the young superhero in training, because the journalist in him recognized a great story when he saw it. Forget busting a drug cartel. Sean Astin had finally found his Pulitzer Prize winner in Medusa Man.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Sean enlists a young, earnest newspaper intern to assist him in finding the superhero in training.

~*~

Much as Sean would have liked to start pursuing his Pulitzer Prize the instant he got back to the newsroom at the _Evening Standard_ , he was grudgingly forced to put the hunt for his erstwhile rescuer, Medusa-Man-to-be, on the back burner. He’d spent too many months working the Noble case, developing contacts and chasing the slenderest of leads, to abandon it now. Besides, he decided that night as he soaked his various scrapes and bruises in strawberry bubble bath, when someone tied you to the railroad tracks and left you to become reporter tartare, the matter turned personal. 

The exposé of the drug lord’s cartel appeared in the _Evening Standard_ under Sean’s byline a week later, creating a massive uproar at city hall. By the next day, Police Commissioner Hill had been called on the carpet by Mayor Weaving for having been, apparently, oblivious to the drug dealing happening right under his nose, Noble and his minions had gone underground, and the flow of drugs to the seedier sections of the metropolis was stopped - for a while, at least. 

Sean wasn’t so naive as to believe the criminal mastermind wouldn’t re-emerge eventually, possibly in some other guise. Nor was he so naive as to believe Noble wouldn’t be pissed to the max and bent on exacting revenge. He expected a threatening missive to mysteriously appear any time now, promising all manner of retribution. Sean shuddered to think what hobbies Noble pursued besides tying knots.

Irate outed criminals were the lot of an investigative reporter, however, and Sean fortunately wasn’t easily cowed. Besides, it appeared he might have a superhero on call.

In the days since Medusa Man freed him from certain death, Sean had several times seriously questioned his sanity and wondered if he’d been delirious and imagined the whole, entirely improbable, rescue. After all, he’d been born and raised in Centerville and never before seen the slightest evidence of a superhero-in-residence. How was that possible? He was a _reporter_ , for fuck’s sake, and a damn good one, too.

But Sean had consumed his fair share of Marvel comics growing up, in common with most boys. Surely if he was going to hallucinate a caped crusader into existence, it would be a member of the Justice League of America, not a chatty young man in jeans, Chucks, dark sunglasses and a beauty salon cape.

No, he hadn’t been delirious and imagining things. Medusa Man was real. Bizarre as hell, but real, super powers and all. Sean had been a reporter long enough to have a highly developed bullshit meter, and it hadn’t registered so much as a particle of bullshit coming from the young superhero in training. Not to mention that the very vivid image of the Acela Express and its conductor frozen in place refused to budge from his brain. Something, or rather someone had stopped that train.

Which led to Sean to the realization that the someone in question was, to all intents and purposes, nameless. Googling “Medusa Man” yielded no helpful clues, while googling “pain in the ass in a beauty salon cape” wasn’t going to get him far. It didn’t help that the kid had gone haring off to rescue a kitten in a tree before Sean had time to drill him more about his name.

Sean lounged back in his desk chair, frowning at his computer screen while he absent-mindedly shot rubber bands across the newsroom, ignoring his colleagues’ indignant complaints as the missiles flew past them. If Medusa-Man-to-be was trying to earn points toward a fancier cape then it stood to reason that Sean wasn’t the only one he’d rescued. What about that kitten, he mused. A kitten rescued from a tree wasn’t normally a story that rated coverage by the paper, but what if there had been something unusual about it, like the presence of a caped crusader... 

He dropped the rubber band he held, scooted his chair forward and started to type. Bingo! There it was. A grin spread across Sean’s face as he read. 

Perfect, he thought. No one paid the least attention to ‘aliens have invaded’ stories, especially when they involved little old ladies and cats. The kitten frozen in mid-air would be chalked up to an overly vivid imagination, and no one would ever suspect that a superhero had been involved. 

Sean was strangely glad that Medusa-Man-to-be had been successful and presumably earned his 5 points. He hoped that whoever evaluated his performance wouldn’t come down too hard because of the kitten falling from the tree and the overt use of his super power, however. He frowned slightly as he recalled the comment the young man had made about Batman hitting on him. There were assholes in every walk of life, it seemed.

Sean printed out the article and circled Violet Rumble’s name and address in red. A visit to Mrs. Rumble was the obvious next step, but he didn’t want Dom Monaghan, the junior (but very ambitious) reporter who had been sent out to interview her, finding out. In fact, he didn’t want _any_ of his colleagues finding out what he was up to. This was going to be huge; he could feel it in his bones. 

Of course, at a certain point he’d have to come clean to the paper’s editor, Viggo Mortensen, but it was early days yet. Fortunately Sean’s position as the _Standard_ ’s premier reporter meant he had a certain autonomy. All he had to tell Viggo was that he was pursuing an interesting lead and he’d be left in peace.

At the start of any new investigation, Sean was filled with boundless energy. Unfortunately, as he knew only too well from experience, the mood wouldn’t last. The relentless grind involved in tracking down every possible lead, and the frustration when some of said leads ended at a brick wall, would soon enough put a damper on his enthusiasm and have him questioning both his career choice and his sanity. And tracking down a superhero in training was likely to prove even more of a grind than usual, if real life superherodom was anything like the comic book version.

What he needed, Sean thought as he pocketed the print-out and headed to the cafeteria for lunch, was someone to help with the grunt work. The paper employed any number of interns, eager young souls wet behind the ears and anxious to break into the newspaper business. He’d have to look over the latest crop and see if there was a likely candidate among them, someone ambitious but principled and trustworthy.

As Sean crossed the cafeteria to get in line, he saw Dom sitting with a few other reporters at a nearby table. An imp of mischief possessed him and he made a slight detour. 

“Good day gentlemen, ladies,” he said, stopping at the table.

A respectful chorus of ‘hellos’ answered him, his rightful due, earned through years of blood, sweat and tears on the trail of a banner headline for the _Evening Standard_.

“So Dom, what’s this I read about an alien invasion in Centerville?” Sean inquired, straight-faced.

Dom groaned and the other reporters laughed. “Don’t ask,” he said with feeling. “It’s fucking unfair, Sean. While you’re busting up drug cartels, I’m interviewing old ladies who think they’re seeing little green men in spaceships.”

Sean grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, Dom, I have a number of alien abduction and tin hat transmission stories on my resume. Consider it a rite of passage for an investigative reporter.”

“Yeah, but I want something juicy, Sean. Something I can really sink my teeth into.”

“Be patient and keep your nose to the ground,” Sean advised. “Something will turn up eventually.”

He took his leave and got on the food line, thinking that if Dom had only known, the juicy story had been right within his grasp. Tough luck. It wasn’t that Sean wouldn’t ever share a lead with one of the novice reporters. He tried to be a mentor and give these youngsters a helpful boost up the ladder if he thought they had what it took to be a good reporter. But not this time. No fucking way. Medusa Man belonged to _him_.

Sean regretfully passed up the fattening fried foods and equally fattening desserts, opting instead for a large salad and a bowl of fresh fruit. Once he got deep into the investigation, he’d exist on coffee, donuts, bagels and pizza, often cold or stale or eaten in inverse order to the time of day they should be eaten. So he tried to live healthy when he could. He filled a glass with lowfat milk, set it on the tray, and as he turned away from the stainless steel counter, bumped elbows with someone.

“Shit,” Sean said as the tray abruptly tilted in his hands. He straightened it as fast as he could, but the glass of milk started sliding toward certain doom on the linoleum floor. At the last second it came to a stop, only a dribble of milk sloshing over the rim. Disaster averted.

“I’m terribly sorry,” said a soft, slightly accented voice. 

“Not your fault,” Sean said. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. I...” 

His voice trailed off as enormous blue eyes, magnified by ugly black horn-rimmed glasses, met his. They belonged to a slight young man with slicked back dark hair, delicate features and a pale complexion. To the best of his knowledge Sean had never seen the kid before, and it would be hard to forget eyes like those once you’d looked into them. For the rest, he was dressed in a short-sleeved white button down, black slacks and black shoes. Dorky beyond belief. All he lacked was a pocket protector and some pencils to attain full nerd status. But instead, a shiny brass intern’s badge was pinned to his shirt.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” 

“Yes, sir. I started last week. My name’s Elijah Wood.”

“Welcome to the _Evening Standard_ , Elijah. I’m Sean Astin.”

Elijah smiled shyly. “I know, sir. You’re famous.”

Sean chuckled. “Infamous is more like it. Don’t go believing _all_ the stories you hear about me.”

“I won’t, Mr. Astin,” Elijah replied earnestly.

“Good. Well, it’s nice to meet you, Elijah. I’ll let you get on about your work now. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” The kid scurried away.

Polite to a fault, Sean thought with amusement as he carried his tray to an empty table and set it down, but not without appeal. Eating his unsatisfactory lunch, he recalled his decision to appropriate one of the newspaper’s interns to help with the grunt work. Maybe this Elijah kid would do, he mused. Yes, he might very well do.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein the superhero in training has a performance evaluation with the Caped Lech, aka Batman.

~*~

“Batman will see you now, Elijah,” Mrs. Olsen said in a kindly voice. 

“Thanks, Mrs. O.” Elijah got up from his chair in the waiting room, drew a deep breath, and adjusted his shitty plastic cape. The three other superheroes in training who had not yet gone in for their performance reviews gave him sympathetic looks as with dragging feet he crossed the carpeted floor.

He’d been hoping that he’d be assigned anyone other than Batman for this evaluation. Fuck, he’d rather face that poker-up-the-ass Green Lantern than the Caped Crusader, which was saying something. But the availability of a particular superhero was up in the air - sometimes quite literally, if a crime was going down in his or her city. You had to take who you got. And unfortunately, the Caped Lech, as Elijah privately thought of him, was who he got all too often.

Elijah paused in front of a door sporting an engraved brass plaque that said: ‘S.H.i.T Evaluation Room 3’. If he didn’t know better, he would give whoever made up the sign credit for possessing a sense of humor. He did know better, however. Not only were the monthly performance reviews at the Superhero Academy taken very seriously, but superheroes in general were a fairly humorless lot. It was one reason he tended to land in hot water so often.

He knocked lightly at the varnished wood and a deep male voice said, “Come in.”

Elijah entered the room, wishing he could leave the door open, but even as the thought flitted through his mind, Batman said, “Shut the door, Elijah, and sit down.”

Batman was in full bat regalia, a most impressive and imposing figure. He made Elijah all the more aware of his shitty cape and his ratty jeans and faded tee shirt. But even if he was outfitted in tight-fitting spandex with a mask, and he could visualize that mask, a totally kick-ass one that covered his entire head and had writhing Medusa-like snakes springing from it, he’d never look like Batman. Or any of the other big name superheroes for that matter. He was too short and he had a ridiculous tummy and chicken legs. It sucked, because no way was he going to cheat like some of the guys and gals did, wearing costumes with fake pecs or boobs to cover the deficiencies of nature.

Elijah took a seat and watched as Batman shuffled through some papers lying on the desk in front of him. “Well, I’ve been reviewing your activity since our last meeting, and it seems you’ve made good progress toward your cape. Only thirty-five more points to go, according to the print out.”

“Yes, sir. I’m hoping to finish up my cape requirement by the end of this month.” Elijah tried very hard not to sound too pleased, but he was ahead of the pace of most of the apprentices. The railroad track rescue had been huge.

But Batman’s mouth turned downward into a frown. “However,” he went on as if Elijah hadn’t spoken, “I do notice a few red flags.”

Oh fuck. He should have known better than to count his chickens before they hatched. “Oh?” he asked cautiously.

“Yes.” Batman’s eyes glinted behind his mask. Elijah often wondered how he achieved that effect. “First, the railroad track rescue. You used your super power to stop the train. Why?”

Shit. Shit. He could see where this was going: point deduction. It was exactly what he’d most dreaded. “I had to, sir. The train was getting too close.”

“There should have been ample time to free the man before the train got too close, Elijah.”

The fucker. “Have you ever tried to sprint flat-out wearing one of these shit, uh, stupid apprentice capes?” Elijah asked with some bitterness. “The fu, uh, stupid things get tangled all around your legs and trip you up.”

“And yet other apprentices haven’t complained about... cape entanglement.”

“Guess I’m just lucky then.” 

Batman bit his lip. “Setting the railroad rescue aside for the moment, there is also the small matter of a kitten owned by a Mrs. Violet Rumble that was stuck up a tree. Once again, a straightforward rescue and yet you employed your super power.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Elijah argued, hating that he sounded so defensive, even if it was true. “Mrs. Rumble freaked when she saw me, and let out this shriek so loud that the kitten freaked, too, and fell off the branch. He would have died if I hadn’t frozen him, which kinda would’ve defeated the point of my being there in the first place.”

“A superhero’s arrival shouldn’t cause the person he is assisting to, uh, freak. It would appear that your approach technique still needs work.”

“Mrs. Rumble’s got some bug up her ass about aliens, sir. She thought I was one.” Batman made a slight choking sound. “I played it up so she wouldn’t suspect I’m a superhero,” continued Elijah. “You know, made ‘oowee oowee oowee’ noises and told her my people were expecting me. That kind of stuff. She totally ate it up.”

Batman was biting his lip again, hard. “I see. Well, let’s move on to an incident that occurred in the cafeteria of the Evening Standard newspaper three days ago.”

Elijah’s heart sank. He’d been fervently hoping that little slip-up might have passed under the radar of the Academy, but no such luck. “I only stopped a glass of milk from falling to the floor, and I was very careful. No one suspected a thing. So I guess there’s no use in crying over unspilled milk, right?” he said brightly.

There was a silence during which Elijah sensed that Batman was struggling against some strong emotion. Eventually he said, his voice quivering slightly, “Elijah, you’ve taken a job at the same place of employment where a man you rescued, a man in front of whom you used your super power, is also working. A man who happens to be an investigative reporter.” His eyes glinted even more intensely. “Given the nature of your super power, the Board decided to place you in Centerville, which has never had its own superhero, but has recently developed a need for one. Although assuming a ‘mild-mannered reporter’ guise is a trope among certain superheroes,” Elijah didn’t think he was imagining the hint of smugness in Batman’s voice, “it does work well to integrate a superhero into a new community and provide him with useful inside information. But protecting your superhero identity, especially from this...” he consulted a paper, “Sean Astin is of the utmost importance. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Elijah decided now was not the right time to reveal that Sean Astin had enlisted his help as a research assistant to help him track down Medusa Man. It wasn’t, he thought, an announcement that was likely to go over well.

“Good.” Batman sat back, steepled his fingers and contemplated Elijah. Elijah tried not to squirm in his chair. “It seems you still have some serious work ahead of you, Elijah. While you did succeed in rescuing Sean Astin from the railroad tracks and saved Mrs. Rumble’s kitten from the tree, neither performance was up to par. For that reason, you will only be given half credit for both tasks.”

“Half credit?!” Elijah exclaimed, outraged. Fuck that. “But that’s not fair.”

“Half credit,” said Batman implacably. “Fifty points for the train rescue and two and a half points for the kitten rescue. I probably should deduct additional points for using your superpower in the cafeteria, but we’ll let that slide.”

Elijah couldn’t believe it. Here he thought he was finally going to have a proper cape, and instead he was set back fifty-two and a half points. Oh, how he longed to use his super power right now, to freeze that smug bastard in place so he could kick him where it would hurt most. Unfortunately, while it might be temporarily satisfying, it would also mean the permanent end of his superhero career. So he swallowed his ire and said stiffly, “Thank you, sir.”

Batman chuckled. “I imagine that far from thanking me, you’d like to throttle me.”

“No, sir, I’d like to kick you in the balls,” said Elijah honestly, too pissed to care.

The chuckle morphed into an outright laugh. Batman leaned forward. “Elijah, Elijah, what am I going to do with you?”

The glint was back and the smile that curved the Caped Crusader’s lips set alarm bells ringing. Oh, it needed only this, thought Elijah. The fucker was going to hit on him again. Where the fuck was that fucker Robin? What use was a sidekick who was never around when you needed him to be?

“I have no idea, sir,” lied Elijah.

“Well I do. In fact, I think it would be a great idea if you came back to the Batcave with me after I’m done here so I can work with you privately on your... approach skills.”

Despite the urgency of the situation, Elijah barely managed to keep from rolling his eyes. His approach skills? Could even the Caped Lech be that much of a lame wad? “That’s nice of you to offer, sir, but really, I should be getting back to Centerville now.”

“Elijah, how many times have I told you that outside business hours you can call me Bruce.” Batman got up and started to come around the table. 

“Oh, then my evaluation is over? Great. I’ll be heading out then. Bye.” Elijah leaped to his feet and bolted from the room. For once his piece of shit cape didn’t trip him up. He paused only long enough to snatch up a handful of chocolate chip cookies from the plate Mrs. Olsen always had available on her desk. Jimmy’s mom was the best baker.

“See ya, Mrs. O.,” Elijah said, stuffing a cookie in his mouth, and made tracks. Batman wouldn’t be able to follow him, as he still had the other apprentices to evaluate, but he was anxious to get back to Centerville and his job at the Evening Standard. 

He was finding the work surprisingly enthralling. But not as enthralling as the _Standard_ ’s top investigative reporter. 

Another thing he had no intention of revealing to Batman - or anyone else.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Sean is once more rescued by the superhero in training.

~*~

“Have you turned up anything, Elijah?” asked Sean, raising his voice a little to be heard over the whining whir of the microfilm machine rewinding.

_Flip, flip, flip, flip_. The tape came noisily off the take-up reel, and his new research assistant shut off the machine and removed the rewound reel of film from the spindle. 

“I’m not exactly sure, Mr. Astin,” Elijah said, picking up a square gray cardboard box and inserting the reel into it. He placed it on top of a tall stack of similar boxes and reached for a much smaller stack of paper. “I printed out a dozen articles for you, but as you weren’t very specific about what you’re looking for, I don’t know if they’ll be useful or not.” He held out the papers. “It would help an awful lot if I knew more.”

_Ah, there is the rub_ , Sean thought as he took the papers from Elijah. The kid had been employed as his assistant for ten days now, but Sean hadn’t yet revealed precisely what he was supposed to assist him _with_.

Sean riffled idly through the grainy, slightly blurry print outs, which seemed mainly to deal with claims of supernatural events. _’I was abducted for alien sex’ states Tuckborough man, 54, or Woman claims ghost of Elvis haunts broom closet, or Vampires in Buckland? Panicky residents stock up on crosses, stakes._

Interesting if you were into that sort of thing, but not germane to the current investigation. But then Sean wasn’t expecting Elijah to turn up any fruitful leads. His instructions had been purposely vague (‘look for any local news stories that strike you as odd or unusual’) and unless Medusa-Man-to-be was a hell of a lot older than he’d appeared, the superhero in training hadn’t even been a twinkle in his parents’ eyes during the span of years he’d asked Elijah to search. 

In fact Sean had given Elijah this particular assignment for a very different reason.

The entire back run of the _Standard_ , first published in 1903, was digitized and searchable through a sophisticated web interface. But instead of sitting Elijah down at a computer, Sean had sent him down to the newspaper’s morgue to use the microfilm. In Sean’s experience, if you wanted to discover whether or not an intern had the right stuff, set him (or her) in an uncomfortable plastic chair in front of a microfilm machine for several days of neck, back and headache inducing, mind-numbingly boring research. You’d find out the answer in spades. As he liked to tell people, investigative reporting was one tenth excitement and nine tenths the equivalent of watching paint dry in a rain forest. 

Judging by the number of boxes on the table by his elbow, Elijah Wood was indeed made of the right stuff. Though he’d been at it for three straight days, he’d kept up the pace and not only was he not looking daggers at Sean, but he looked as if he was prepared to continue solidifying the crick in his neck all night if necessary.

“Tell you what, Elijah,” Sean said, arriving at a decision, “why don’t you take a break from searching the papers and come with me. I’m going to interview a woman who may have a lead for the new story I’m working on. I can fill you in on the details on the drive there.”

“That’d be swell, Mr. Astin,” Elijah chirped, and fixed Sean with those enormous blue eyes behind thick black horn-rimmed glasses.

Sean’s brain gave an odd hiccuping blip and then readjusted itself. He really needed to get more sleep, he decided.

“Well, I don’t want you straining your eyes,” Sean said, a statement that would have rendered his colleagues speechless with shock if they’d heard it, as he wasn’t exactly known for going easy on anyone’s eyes (or other body parts for that matter), including his own.

“My eyes don’t, um, strain easily, sir,” Elijah said, “but it’s awful nice of you to worry.” He got up from his chair. “I have to return these microfilm reels to Mrs. Bunson first.” 

Sean had noticed that the kid was kind of clumsy, prone to tripping over his own two feet and spilling things. So his premonition of disaster was not unfounded. Intending to lift a few microfilm boxes from the top of the uneven stack, instead Elijah accidentally jostled it with his elbow. It started to teeter, and Elijah’s bumbling attempts to grab the wobbling boxes only made matters worse.

As the microfilm tower collapsed to the floor, Sean had a fleeting, ironic thought that they could have used Medusa Man’s unique super power right then. It wasn’t likely, however, that this would rate even a point toward his official superhero cape.

“Oh geez, I’m such a klutz,” Elijah said, staring in dismay at the boxes scattered across the dingy tan carpet. 

Sean didn’t argue the point, but stooped to pick up the nearest box. It turned out to be the same box that Elijah was going for, and his hand ended up grabbing hold of Sean instead of the box.

As it did, an electric spark shot through Sean like like he’d stuck his finger in a live socket. Must be static build-up from the carpet, he decided. Elijah snatched his hand away as if he’d been burned and began gathering up boxes as fast as he could. From the corner of his eye, Sean observed twin flags of red flying high on Elijah’s pale cheeks. 

_Well, fuck me_ , he thought in surprise, and realized that it wasn’t static electricity after all, but electricity of a very different sort. The kind that brought a pleasurable tightness to a guy’s groin.

Which was weird since pale, skinny geeks weren’t usually his type - when he had time to indulge a type, that is, which was rarely. But he had a strict ‘no fraternizing with the interns’ policy, so he ignored the unexpected stirring down below and focused on picking up boxes. 

Ignoring the shapely butt two feet in front of him where Elijah knelt to reach under the table for a stray box was a lot harder.

~*~

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Sean said as they drove away from the _Standard_ ’s downtown offices. “We’re going to interview a woman named Violet Rumble. I don’t know if you saw the article in the paper, but she claims to have had an encounter with an alien who rescued her kitten from a tree.”

“I saw the article, Mr. Astin. People sure can be funny, huh? Thinking they see aliens and stuff, I mean.”

Sean took a quick glance at his companion. Elijah was safely buckled in the passenger seat and looked about twelve years old in his lightweight tan windbreaker and with his hair slicked back. Despite himself, Sean noticed how long the kid’s eyelashes were, practically touching the lenses of his glasses.

“Maybe, but if you’re going to be a reporter, you’ll learn that there is often a kernel of truth in the wildest story. Our job is to ferret out that kernel of truth, Elijah.”

“You think there is actually something to her story?”

“More than think. I know.”

“Golly. So you’ve seen aliens, too?”

Sean felt those enormous blue eyes on him, but he was busy pulling onto the bypass to the west side of Centerville, where the Hobbiton neighborhood and Mrs. Rumble were located. Once they were safely on the highway, he said, “Not aliens, Elijah.” He paused. His gut instinct told him it was safe to confide in this big-eyed, earnest kid. A klutz Elijah might be, but a hard-working honest klutz. “I’m about to tell you a story. It’s going to sound pretty unbelievable, but every single word of it is true.” 

So Sean launched into the tale, how Noble and his minions turned up at the abandoned warehouse instead of the informant Sean had been expecting, how they ambushed him and brought him to the railroad tracks in a remote area outside the city where Noble himself had tied Sean to the rails with the greatest of glee and extremely graphic descriptions of exactly what Sean would look like after a train ran him over.

“The bastard knows his knots,” Sean said ruefully.

“But how did you get away?” asked Elijah. 

Sean hesitated. Now that the big reveal was at hand, it was proving surprisingly difficult to do it. Not that he didn’t trust Elijah, who was so squeaky clean with his ‘swells’ and ‘geezes’ and ‘gollys’ that he might have stepped out of a 1950s TV show, but somehow he wasn’t keen on the kid concluding that his new mentor was completely bat shit crazy. 

But if he’d learned one thing over the years it was that when faced with a difficult situation you simply barreled straight ahead. Faint heart never won Pulitzer. So Sean said baldly, “I was rescued by a superhero.”

A choking sound that might have been a hastily repressed laugh emerged from his companion. “A - a _superhero_?” Elijah squeaked.

“I know it sounds mad, and trust me, I had trouble believing it myself at first. But it’s true. He used the power of his eyes to stop the train that was about to turn me into a pancake, and then he cut me loose and sent the train on its way again.” Sean replayed that scene in his mind for the zillionth time: the Acela Express thundering towards them, the calm way Medusa-Man-to-be lowered his sunglasses and gave the train a look, how the train had simply frozen in place...

“Wow,” said Elijah. 

“Yeah. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever witnessed in my life, Elijah.”

“Really?”

Sean glanced at Elijah again. It seemed an odd question. “Wouldn’t you think so if it were you?”

“Well, sure, Mr. Astin,” Elijah said, “but gosh, it seems incredible. I mean, a superhero right here in Centerville?”

“Exactly. A superhero right here in Centerville. And apparently no one except for me is aware of Medusa Man’s presence.”

Elijah made another choking sound. “Medusa Man?”

“That’s his name. Well, it’s going to be his name,” Sean added in the interests of the accuracy toward which a journalist should, in his opinion, always strive. “He’s still a superhero in training.”

“Mr. Astin, are you pulling my leg?”

“Elijah, I am not. Now here’s the thing. This has the potential to be a huge story, the biggest of my career, the one that finally gets me my Pulitzer. And it could also give your career a significant boost, save you years of clawing your way up the ladder. So this has to be a secret between the two of us, okay? No one else, and I mean NO one, is to know anything about it. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” Elijah spoke solemnly, like one taking a vow.

“Good. I don’t want any other reporter breaking this story. Picture the banner, Elijah: SUPERHERO DISCOVERED IN CENTERVILLE. God, it gives me chills just thinking about it.” 

A hard-on was actually more like it, but Sean didn’t want to offend Elijah’s tender sensibilities. To judge from the furious blush when their hands touched, the kid had led a sheltered life, probably never even been kissed much less had sex with anyone.

“Shouldn’t the banner read ‘SUPERHERO IN _TRAINING_ DISCOVERED IN CENTERVILLE’?” Elijah apparently subscribed to Sean’s dictum of journalistic accuracy.

“He told me he was close to getting his professional cape, so by the time we break the story I expect he’ll be a fully fledged superhero.” 

Strangely, it mattered to Sean that the enthusiastic if potty-mouthed apprentice succeed. And the reason it was strange was because for once he wasn’t thinking of his own personal journalistic ambitions, but of another’s well being. Graduating from the superhero academy, or whatever it was called, would get Medusa Man away from that perv Batman, about whom Sean cherished very unkind thoughts.

“I hope so,” Elijah remarked, though his voice trailed off as if expressing doubt. He added, “It will make for a _much_ more impressive banner. So where does Mrs. Rumble come into this?”

“Although she claims that an alien rescued her kitten, it was no alien. It was Medusa Man. It _had_ to be. Her description of the guy freezing the kitten in mid-air makes it plain. I want to talk to her, see if I can get anything else out of her that will help me track him down.” Sean went on, growing excitement in his voice and a fire in his eyes, “I want to find out everything about him, Elijah. Where he’s from, who his parents are, how he came to Centerville. Where does he live? Does he have an alter ego? Where do his super powers come from? Was he born with them? Or did he attain them through some accident, say, exposure to radiation? I want to interview him for the paper - an exclusive interview that will introduce him not only to Centerville, but the world.”

They reached the Hobbiton exit off the bypass, and Sean slowed the car. As he drove to the traffic light at the bottom of the ramp, he said, “Pretty heady stuff, huh? Bet you never imagined you’d find yourself involved with superheroes.”

“Never,” Elijah said, sounding breathless.

“You stick with me, kid,” Sean advised him. “You won’t regret it for a minute, I promise you.”

~*~

“Ahhhh-CHOO!” Sean sneezed violently and brushed at the cat hairs clinging to his trousers. They remained stubbornly put.

Elijah offered him another tissue. “Here you go, Mr. Astin.”

Sean took the tissue and blew his congested nose. With a sigh he wadded it up and put it in the cup holder with the several others he’d already deposited there. Fortunately his assistant appeared to have an endless supply. “Danks, Edijah,” he said, and turned the key in the ignition. 

“Mrs. Rumble sure does have an awful lot of cats,” observed Elijah with stunning understatement. “And they really seemed to like you. It was sweet.”

Well, that was one way of putting it, thought Sean, sneezing again. 

The visit to Violet Rumble had not been a success. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been cooperative, far from it. In fact, she’d been absolutely over the moon at having a follow-up interview for, as she’d informed them, ‘that other nice young man didn’t stay long at all’. She’d welcomed them with open arms, hot tea, cookies that were actually served on paper doilies, and a dozen-odd cats who adorned the furniture, tables and, eventually and inevitably, Sean’s lap. He seemed to be a cat magnet. They always knew the ones who were allergic.

Sean glanced in the rear view mirror before pulling away from the curb and nearly moaned aloud. He looked like shit, with his puffy eyes and Rudolph-red nose. It would be worth it if he’d gotten any useful information out of Mrs. Rumble, but she’d been unable to provide anything that would help Sean track down Medusa Man. He’d pulled out his trusty notebook and taken notes in his private shorthand (with some difficulty as he was weighted down with purring cats, all except Smokey, who had thankfully taken a liking to Elijah), and over the coming days he’d review them many times in case some insight he’d previously missed leaped out at him. But he wasn’t optimistic. 

Mrs. Rumble was obsessed with alien-abduction-for-sex conspiracies, and was convinced that her late husband Arthur was not in fact deceased but had been beamed away to a spaceship for that very purpose. She had a scrapbook filled with articles, including the one Elijah had printed out for him, and an endless stream of anecdotal sightings, which she’d delightedly shared with her visitors. 

If Sean didn’t know better, he’d now be convinced that Centerville was overrun with sex-crazed aliens, when in fact all it had was one beauty-parlor-cape-wearing, potty-mouthed superhero in training. 

Between sneezes and nose blows, Sean had pressed her about the young ‘alien’ who had rescued Smokey, returning over and over to the encounter. Her description of his attire (“I expect he was trying to assimilate, Mr. Astin”, an observation that begged the question of how parading around in public in a beauty parlor cape could possibly be termed ‘assimilating’) exactly matched what he’d been wearing when he rescued Sean. Not that Sean had had any serious doubts, but it established beyond question that it had indeed been Medusa Man. But Mrs. Rumble clung to her story that he was an alien and had returned to his spaceship. 

“And he got there how?” Sean had asked her.

“Why, he was beamed up, of course, like I said,” replied Mrs. Rumble. “Like poor dear Arthur and countless others.”

“You saw this occur?”

“Well... not exactly,” she’d admitted.

“What exactly _did_ you see?” A slightly mulish look had appeared on her face, indicating that he was pushing too hard, so Sean picked up an oatmeal raisin cookie and bit into it. “Mm, this is delicious, Mrs. Rumble,” he’d said. Which it was actually, but even if it had had the consistency of concrete and tasted like dust he’d have praised it to the skies. It never hurt to butter up a potential lead.

Mrs. Rumble had beamed with delight. “Why thank you, Mr. Astin. It’s an old family recipe.”

“Sean, please. Mr. Astin is much too formal. Now, you were saying about the alien... how he returned to his ship?” Sean had prodded gently.

“I invited him in for some tea, but he said he was very sorry but he had to return to his people, and then he took off running. Pity, I really would have liked to ask him about Arthur.”

“So the actual beaming up you didn’t witness.” Sean licked some crumbs from his fingers with a yum sound, and caught a pair of enormous blue eyes fixed on him. A well-mannered kid like Elijah _would_ be appalled by his manners, but he’d do whatever it took to get on Violet Rumble’s good side. Well, within reason. He had his limits.

“No, but I heard a very familiar rumbling sound up in the clouds and there was a brilliant flash of light, so I’m certain that’s what happened.”

“Hmm.” Sean scribbled a note on his pad. _Afternoon thunderstorm? Check weather records._ “What direction did the alien run?”

“Let me see... He cut across my yard, jumped the fence into the Twofoots’ yard and that was the last I saw of him. I’m sure he was heading for the woods at the end of the cul-de-sac. That’s where they beam people up and down,” she’d said knowledgeably. 

And that had been that. Sean disengaged himself from his feline admirers and Mrs. Rumble printed the cookie recipe on one of the index cards Elijah was using to take notes. He’d shyly requested it, saying that he knew someone who loved to bake and would definitely want to try it.

“Such a quiet, polite young man,” she’d whispered to Sean as they prepared to leave. “You’ve raised him right, Sean.”

Before Sean could protest this outrage - did he look _that_ old? - he’d been seized with a succession of violent sneezes. He was convinced that Elijah’s sudden fit of coughing at the same time had nothing to do with allergies, though. The kid had sharp ears.

For formality’s sake, and because he needed the fresh air, Sean had investigated the woods at the end of the cul-de-sac, but that had yielded nothing but a cloud of bloodthirsty mosquitoes who, like Mrs. Rumble’s cats, preferred Sean to Elijah. The kid didn’t get so much as a single bite, but on sum Sean couldn’t regret being the chosen meal. It would have been wrong for Elijah’s pale, perfect skin to be marred by ugly red welts.

As they drove back to the _Standard_ building Sean said, “Well, Elijah, it looks like we’ve gotten all the information we can out of Mrs. Rumble, for now at least. If necessary, we’ll interview her again. Or maybe I’ll send you alone,” he added with feeling, “and spare my sinuses.” He was relieved to discover that his diphthongs were back in working order, but he wasn’t anxious to become a human cat tree again.

“You sound a lot better already,” offered Elijah. “Not nearly so stuffed up.”

“Thanks. Now as soon as you get home, I want you to review your notes. Jot down anything that might have occurred to you since we were with Mrs. Rumble, and see if anything strikes you, anything we should follow up on. A little time and perspective can make a big difference.” _Not to mention clear sinuses_ , he added mentally. “Tomorrow we’ll start working on developing other leads. We have to figure out the who, what, when, where and especially how of Medusa Man. Right now we only have partial answers. Make no mistake about it, though, it could take weeks. Are you game?”

“I sure am, Mr. Astin.” Elijah had those big eyes fixed on his face again and was listening solemnly, taking to heart every word Sean uttered as if he were scattering priceless pearls of wisdom. 

Sean sneezed and felt undeniably flattered. A little hero worship worked wonders, especially when one was covered in cat hair.

~*~

Sean stayed late at the _Standard_ , as he often did, and it was nearly nine o’clock when he took the elevator down to the basement parking garage. Elijah’s purple scooter that had been chained to the bike rack near the elevator was gone. Sean hadn’t even realized people still rode scooters. But somehow it was the perfect fit for his geeky young assistant, who probably lived with his parents and had posters of Steve Jobs plastered all over his bedroom walls.

Whistling softly Sean strode across the garage to his Nissan. The lot wasn’t entirely empty of cars, thanks to the night crew that took over after the newsroom put the paper to bed, but empty enough that his footsteps echoed hollowly in the enclosed area, bouncing off the concrete walls and ceiling. He was about to pull the key from his pocket when he saw something that stopped him in his tracks as effectively as Medusa Man’s eyes, and made his blood run cold. 

A man had suddenly materialized out of the space between Sean’s car and the one next to it. He’d obviously been crouching out of sight for as he straightened he grew taller and taller, like a California redwood sprouting from the asphalt. Sean recognized him at once. It was Lurtz, Noble’s chief henchman and the tallest, widest, meanest and most intimidating guy Sean had ever set eyes on in his life.

Looked like Noble had decided to bypass the threatening message step. 

“Going somewhere, asshole?” Lurtz asked in a voice that sounded as if he gargled regularly with gravel. He came forward so that he was blocking Sean’s path to the car. 

“Home,” Sean said firmly, slipping the blade of the key between his fore and middle fingers. He was toast - the guy could take him apart in seconds - but maybe he could inflict a little damage before being toasted.

“Yeah? Guess that depends on your definition of home.” He laughed. It was a laugh reminiscent of rusty metal saws and shards of broken glass, and made Sean’s teeth cringe.

Four other men emerged from the shadows, each familiar to him from the ambush at the warehouse. Big guys all and definitely not inclined to curl up on his lap and purr. Toast? He wasn’t even leftover crumbs.

Sean rose slightly onto the balls of his feet. His only hope, and he knew it was a fool’s hope, lay in speed. He was likely quicker than any of them, being considerably smaller and lighter. Additionally, he’d grown up in the north part of the city, in the rough and tumble Tighfield section, and he knew a thing or two about fighting dirty. None of which was likely to help him much - one blow from Lurtz’s ham-like fist would flatten him - but he wasn’t about to go easily or quietly.

“Mr. Noble ain’t pleased with you, asshole, and he sent us to _personally_ express his very great displeasure to you.” Lurtz cracked his knuckles. It sounded unnervingly like pops from a gun.

“That’s lovely of him,” said Sean, “but I’ll pass. I prefer my messages not to be delivered with split infinitives.” 

“What?”

Sean didn’t wait for Lurtz’s slow brain to puzzle out the insult. “Yahhhhhhhhhhhh!” He let out a banshee wail and barreled straight at Lurtz. He had the advantage of surprise. Before the giant could react, Sean had barreled into him head first like a human cannon ball and sent him staggering back. Lurtz crashed into two of the other guys and they fell in a cursing, flailing heap.

Instinctively the others leaped to their fallen comrades’ aid, and this gave Sean the opening he’d hoped for. He bolted, pelting across the garage as fast as he could go, but almost immediately over the pounding of his heart he heard the pounding of feet in pursuit. _Shit_ , he thought and ran faster. But it wasn’t fast enough.

Lighter and shorter he might be, but his pursuer had longer legs and must once have been an NFL running back or an Olympic sprinter, because in a frighteningly short space of time, Sean heard a voice growl, “Gotcha,” and a hand like a vise clamped down on his shoulder, pulling him up short.

Desperately, Sean reached over his shoulder and jabbed the point of the car key into the back of his captor’s hand as hard as he could. The guy let out a yowl of pain, but unfortunately didn’t release his grip. All Sean had managed was to stir the already furious hornet’s nest. A glance back showed the rest of Noble’s gang of Merry Men on their feet and approaching fast. They looked far from merry. 

In other words, Sean was fucked.

_Damn it_ , he thought, as he was spun around like a child’s top and a massive fist came flying at his face, _I always wanted to look nice in my coffin. Guess that’s out of the question now_.

He managed to duck just enough to avoid a flush hit, but the blow glanced off his right cheekbone. Pain exploded in his head and Sean staggered and saw stars. 

Then suddenly, so abruptly that he fell flat on his ass, the cruel vise-like grip was gone, and the guy was flying through the air like a rag doll. He hit a concrete pillar, slid to the ground and didn’t move.

_What the fuck?_

A familiar voice said, “Fuck it all, I’m late _again_. Fucking cape.” Medusa Man, clearly still, despite his optimism, a superhero in training, crouched beside Sean. He was wearing a maroon tee shirt today plus the jeans and Chuck Taylors and, of course, the loathed beauty parlor cape. Despite the fact that it was night and the parking garage hardly well-lit, he had on the dark sunglasses with orange frames. “You okay?” he asked with concern, setting his hand on Sean’s arm.

The stars were receding but Sean was too dazed to speak and not only because of the blow he’d received. He was trying to put this slight young man and his massive attacker in a fight together with the former coming out on the winning end and finding it impossible to make two and two add up.

Meanwhile Lurtz and the others, who had paused to gape in bewilderment at their fallen comrade, were back on the warpath.

“Stay put, I gotta take care of the rest of these fuckers,” Medusa-Man-to-be said, standing up.

Sean assumed he was now going to lower his glasses and freeze the approaching mob, but instead he stepped deliberately in front of Sean and said, “I wouldn’t come any closer if I were you.”

Lurtz, who had apparently decided that the comeuppance of his friend must have been a fluke, let out another of those haunted house sound effect laughs and said, “Who’s gonna stop us, runt? You? Better beat it and run back to the beauty parlor before your pretty face gets rearranged.”

“I take it that’s a no? Well, all right then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He sounded totally nonchalant and stood at his ease, with his hands dangling loosely at his sides.

Lurtz glanced around at the others, gave a slight nod, and as one man they rushed headlong at Medusa Man. 

It should have been no contest, four big muscular polecat-mean goons pitted against one short, slender guy in a beauty parlor cape. But what occurred next left Sean more dazed than ever. It was no contest, all right - Medusa-Man-to-be kicked their sorry asses from here to Sunday. Everything happened in a blur, his hands and feet moving with a speed and accuracy almost impossible to comprehend.

It was, Sean later decided, like watching a Bruce Lee movie on fast forward. 

In a stunningly short space of time, the entire band of Merry Men was laid flat out cold on the pavement. As Lurtz, the last to give up the fight, collapsed after a leaping kick hit him hard in the solar plexus, Medusa-Man-to-be, who wasn’t even breathing hard, looked up at the ceiling.

“Are you happy now, Caped Lech?” he shouted. “See? I didn’t use my fucking super power. So don’t you dare even _think_ about deducting points for this one!” And he made the universally accepted gesture for ‘up yours’.

“Uh,” Sean got out.

“You’d better call the cops,” said the young man. “I’m gonna tie up these suckers before they start coming to.” He knelt beside Lurtz, removed the man’s belt and then flipped him onto his stomach. As he bound Lurtz’s wrists at the small of his back with the belt, the superhero in training shook his head. “Too bad it’s against the academy rules to kill anyone. This fucker is bad news.” He glanced at Sean, who noticed that his sunglasses were still firmly in place. “You gonna call the cops?”

As he repeated the belt and truss routine on the next man, Sean pulled out his phone, dialed 9-1-1 and left an anonymous tip. By the time he disconnected, four of the five Merry Men were tied up and the fifth, the goon who hit the pillar, nearly done.

“How did you _do_ that?” Sean asked. There were a million other things he ought to be asking - he was an investigative reporter, for Christ’s sake. But somehow Sean simply couldn’t get his brain to function properly. Maybe because his cheek was throbbing viciously.

Medusa-Man-to-be beamed at him, and Sean saw that he had a noticeable gap between his front teeth. He made a mental note of it. If the guy had an alter ego, like most superheroes, then that gap would be a dead giveaway. “Top of my class in martial arts,” he bragged then he scowled. “Good thing, too. Do you know that fucker Batman took away half the points I got for rescuing you from that train?” He gave the knot a final tug and dragged the unconscious man over to where the others were lying in a tidy row, like geese trussed for the market. “You know what I think?”

“What?” 

“I don’t think the Caped Lech wants me to graduate.” The scowl deepened. “But I will. This should be good for at least 50 points, maybe more, and no fucking way is he gonna be able to deduct so much as a single one.”

Sirens started wailing in the distance. The cops were on the way.

“I’m gonna have to go,” said Medusa Man-to-be. He came over and crouched next to Sean again. Though his eyes were obscured by the dark-tinted sunglasses, Sean sensed they were filled with regret. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here in time to keep that fucker from hitting you, Sean,” he added, and Sean didn’t feel surprise that he knew his name. 

“It’s okay,” Sean said. “You saved my life again. What’s a punch in the check in comparison to that?”

“Still, you’re gonna have one hell of an impressive shiner by tomorrow. Make sure you put ice on that bruise when you get home, okay?”

The sirens were getting louder.

“Shit,” Medusa Man-to-be said. “Did they have to get here so fast?” Next thing Sean knew, a pair of soft warm lips were pressed to his. “See you around, Sean,” he whispered, and before a flabbergasted Sean could react, he was on his feet and running, the ridiculous cape fluttering behind him.

"Wait, tell me your real name!" Sean called after him, but it was too late. The superhero in training was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Viggo doubts Sean, and the superhero in training puts in an unexpected appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With Sean having appeared in an episode of 'Franklin and Bash', wherein he played a Real Life Superhero called 'The Viper', this chapter is intended to start setting up some future events. A bit more serious than the previous chapters. NOTE: possible trigger warning for a situation involving suicide.

~*~

"Jesus H. Christ, Sean, what happened to your face?" Dom asked, encountering Sean as he came into the newsroom shortly after 8 a.m. the next morning.

"Ran into a door," replied Sean blandly. _A door shaped like a fist and harder than a rock_ , he mentally added. But he had no intention of telling Dom that.

Dom whistled softly. "You better be more careful, man. You could have put out your eye."

"Don't worry, I will be," Sean said, but Dom, clearly bursting with pent up news to share, had already moved on.

"Hey, did you hear about what happened last night?" he demanded. "It's all over the building."

No surprise there, thought Sean. The _Standard_ was usually the one delivering the news to others, not having it deposited smack dab on its doorstep.

"You mean the men they found tied up in the garage?" he said. "Yeah, I got a call about it." From the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Viggo Mortensen, as a matter of fact, and he'd ended their brief conversation with the words, "I want to see you in my office first thing, Sean."

But Sean had no intention of telling Dom that, either.

Dom looked mildly disappointed that Sean had already heard the big news. Then he said, "Tell you what, Sean, I'm going to ask Mortensen if I can be assigned to investigate what happened. This could be my big break. I'm fucking sick and tired of covering hot dog eating contests at the county fair. Do you know I stepped in pig shit?" he added in aggrieved tones.

Sean could have informed him right then and there not to get his hopes up, but he didn't. Let Viggo handle it, he decided. He felt bad for Dom, because he remembered all too well his days as a cub reporter assigned to similarly trivial events. And under other circumstances Sean would have supported him and put in a good word for him with the boss, because he admired initiative and thought Dom had what it took to make a competent investigative reporter. 

But not when a superhero in training was involved. No other reporter was going to get a chance to break his story, not if Sean had anything to say about it. He hadn't gotten where he was by being Mr. Altruistic at his own expense, and he wasn't about to start now.

"Well, best of luck, Dom," Sean said speciously, clapping him on the shoulder, and then headed towards Viggo's spacious glass-fronted office at the back of the newsroom.

It took him a lot longer to reach it than usual, however, because once his colleagues got a glimpse of his spectacular shiner he was repeatedly forced to stop and explain about the 'door' he'd 'run into'.

He cherished few illusions about how his fellow reporters viewed him, and he was secretly amused when several people appeared as gratified as they were shocked by his battered visage, obviously feeling (with some justification) that he'd finally gotten his just desserts. 'Good job, door!' he could mentally hear them saying. That others highly doubted the veracity of his story and thought he'd been in a barroom brawl was also evident.

But as long as no one connected his 'accident' with the men found tied up in the parking garage, Sean didn't give a damn what they theorized. Because even _his_ glib tongue couldn't come up with a satisfactory explanation for how he'd managed to subdue and truss up four bad ass guys twice his size and half again as tall. No one, not even the hero-worshipping young intern Elijah, was going to believe for a second that he was capable of such a feat.

Which was why, though still dazed from the blow and, to his bemusement, even more from his rescuer's remarkably soft lips, Sean had had presence of mind enough to jump in his car and get the hell out of Dodge before the police arrived. No way did he want to be tied to the incident and brought in for questioning, even though it meant that Noble's goons would get off scot-free.

The men, though more brawn than brains, weren't dumb enough to spill the beans about why they were there and what had happened. Noble might be in hiding, but he could still pull the strings to make his minions dance - and not for joy. That the drug lord would be pissed to the max over a second failure went without saying. Sean could _almost_ find it in his heart to feel sorry for the band of Merry Men.

Sean also suspected that Lurtz and the others were too vain to admit that a slight young man in a beauty parlor cape had bested them. But even if they did, it would sound like so much bullshit and the cops would never buy it. In the absence of any proof of wrong-doing - in fact, they could and probably would claim to have been the victims of an ambush - they'd soon be released, if they hadn't been already.

That was bad news for Sean, for even without Noble's prodding, they'd be thirsting for revenge. He recalled what Medusa Man had said when he tied up Lurtz: "This fucker is bad news." All too true, but Sean had to keep his eyes firmly fixed on the prize: an exclusive interview with an honest to god superhero, and a Pulitzer for investigative journalism to adorn his mantelpiece at home.

So there was, in fact, a compelling reason to want them free: both his encounters with Medusa Man had come about because of Noble and his goons. If that's what it took to meet him a third time then as far as he was concerned, bring it on, baby.

Outside Viggo's office, he frowned, for an image popped into his brain, a young man with slicked back dark hair, black horn-rimmed glasses and giant blue Bambi eyes. Elijah. He'd have to be careful to keep him out of harm's way. The kid had a habit of tripping over his own two feet, and Sean didn't want to be responsible for getting him killed.

Whoa. There he went again, with that weird over-protectiveness. What was _that_ about?  
It occurred to him then to wonder what his sheltered young assistant's reaction would be when he saw Sean's face. Hopefully he wouldn't pass out from the shock.

~*~

"Come in and sit down, Sean," Viggo invited when Sean knocked on the partially open office door.

He did, making certain the door was shut firmly behind him. He didn't want anyone overhearing his conversation with Viggo. After a largely sleepless night, thanks to a combination of throbbing pain and reliving Medusa-Man-to-be's unexpected kiss, Sean had decided that it was time to come clean to Viggo about Centerville's resident superhero in training. The _Standard_ 's editor-in-chief was one of the few people Sean totally trusted and respected.

Viggo's pale eyebrows rose as he took in the black eye and the livid bruise on Sean's cheek. "What happened?" he asked.

Sean took a seat opposite his boss. "Noble happened," he said bluntly. "His goons waylaid me in the garage when I left the _Standard_ last night."

The eyebrows rose even higher, but Viggo was an imperturbable sort. He steepled his fingers against his chin and said, "You didn't tell me you were involved when I called you."

"I wasn't sure if I was ready to tell you," replied Sean. "I needed to think about it."

"And why is that?" Not a trace of accusation or displeasure colored Viggo's quiet voice. It was a measure of his faith in Sean, and Sean didn't take that faith lightly.

"Because it's connected, in a roundabout way, to that new story I've been investigating." Sean leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Viggo, I'm sitting on the biggest story the _Standard_ has ever had a chance to break." He held the other man's eyes and said, "There's a superhero in Centerville."

"A _what_?" Viggo was startled out of his normally imperturbable demeanor.

"A superhero," Sean repeated. "You know, like Spiderman or Captain America." No way was he bringing up the Caped Lech, aka Batman. "I've met him twice and twice he's saved my life, including last night. Trust me, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now if it wasn't for him. Lurtz and those other guys would have made mincemeat out of me and fed it to the rats."

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Absolutely. And as far as I can tell I'm the only one who knows about his presence in Centerville, Viggo." Well, except for Elijah, he mentally amended, but in Elijah's loyalty he had absolute confidence, despite the fact he'd only known him for ten days. The kid exuded sincerity and honesty - probably too much ever to make a good reporter, unfortunately. "We're looking at a major coup for the paper."

"Hmm." Viggo sounded non-committal. "I think you better tell me the entire story from the beginning, Sean."

So Sean started talking, but to his dismay, his normally understanding and supportive boss looked increasingly skeptical instead of blown away as Sean had hoped. A frown line appeared between his brows and only deepened as the tale unfolded.

"You don't believe me," Sean stated after he finished.

Maybe because Elijah had accepted the story without hesitation, Sean had expected the same from Viggo. He was disappointed and, to be perfectly honest, hurt that his boss doubted him. He wasn't immune to hero worship himself, and Viggo had been his mentor and inspiration since he'd arrived at the _Standard_ as a wet behind the ears cub reporter twelve years earlier.

"I believe that the young man exists and that you're convinced he's a superhero," Viggo said. "Or a superhero in training, as you called him."

"But?"

"But there _is_ another possible explanation."

"I'm not on drugs nor am I delusional, Viggo."

At that Viggo smiled. "I didn't say you were."

"Then what explanation can there be for what I've told you other than that it's the truth?"

"He could be part of the Real Life Superhero movement. Ever heard of it?"

Mystified, Sean shook his head. "No, I can't say that I have."

"They're regular folk, like you and me, who in their spare time dress up as superheroes and help to fight crime. There are a few of them in Centerville, as a matter of fact." Viggo turned to his computer and typed something, then hit return. "They even have their own organization. See?" He swiveled the monitor toward Sean.

Sean stared at the screen. A somewhat pudgy man dressed in red and blue spandex stared back at him. _Real Life Superheroes.org_ , the banner across the top of the screen proclaimed.

"From everything you've told me," Viggo said, "it seems entirely possible that 'Medusa Man' is a well-intentioned kid with an overactive imagination who likes to fancy himself a superhero. If people with actual superpowers existed, do you honestly believe they'd be running around wearing plastic beauty parlor capes?"

"I told you, he's still an apprentice," Sean explained patiently.

"Or that's what he told you to explain away his makeshift outfit. Costumes like these aren't cheap, Sean. They cost more than a young guy who is probably still in school can afford."

Sean wondered how Viggo had become so well informed about Real Life Superheroes, but he had other fish to fry at the moment so he let it go. "Viggo, he stopped that train with his eyes. He froze it in place. I saw him do it."

"Did you? Or was it the conductor who saw _you_ and stopped the train in the nick of time?" Viggo challenged him.

Damn Viggo and his logic. "He also took out Noble's goons singlehandedly," Sean argued. "One little guy against four big thugs. How do you explain that?"

"A lot of these RLSHs are martial arts experts, Sean. They may not have true superpowers, but they aren't lacking in fighting skills."

Viggo spoke so calmly and reasonably that Sean found himself doubting the truth of what he'd witnessed with his own eyes. Was i t possible that Viggo was right? Uneasily, he recalled his own initial reaction when Medusa Man showed up to rescue him from impending death-by-Acela-Express: a wacky do-gooder who thought he was Superman or another superhero. Could the young man simply be a poorly dressed _poseur_?

No! His mind rebelled at the very idea. Medusa Man was no poseur, to be or not to be. Sean would stake his reputation on it - and in point of fact that's precisely what he was intending to do.

He said, "Look, I know it sounds improbable, and you can come up with any alternate explanation you like, but it won't change my mind. He's the real deal, Viggo, and I'm going to prove it to you and to everyone else in Centerville."

"I _could_ put you on another assignment," Viggo remarked.

"Until I come to my senses, you mean? But you won't. You can pooh-pooh all you like, but inside you're dying to find out if I'm actually right," Sean said shrewdly.

Viggo leaned back in his swivel chair and laughed. "I admit I’m curious to see how you’re going to pull this one off, Sean."

"Good thing," Sean said, "because if you think for a second that I’ll consider giving up the story of a lifetime, you’re out of your mind."

"Very well, go ahead and chase your superhero in training then. But," Viggo added, and his expression grew serious, "be very careful. Noble’s four men were questioned and released early this morning."

"Don’t you worry about me," Sean airily assured him, and silently added, _Because if they do come after me, I’m counting on it being my one-way ticket to another meeting with Medusa-Man-to-be._

~*~

When Sean got to his cubicle, he discovered Elijah occupying it. The young intern appeared to have set up a mini-hospital on Sean’s desk, to judge by the abundance of first aid supplies in evidence.

“What’s all this?” Sean asked, raising an inquiring eyebrow and then wincing from the pain of even that simple motion.

Elijah looked up from opening a bottle of Tylenol tablets. His impossibly wide blue eyes grew impossibly wider and bluer behind his thick horn-rimmed spectacles as he took in Sean’s bruised and battered face. For a dizzying moment, Sean was tempted to compare those eyes to dew-drenched bluebells or some similarly overblown simile. Thank goodness he was a journalist, trained to write crisp, economical prose, he thought, conveniently forgetting the rose petal simile that had crossed his mind more than once the previous night.

“Oh Mr. Astin,” Elijah exclaimed, setting down the bottle. “Your poor face.” He actually wrung his hands at his breast and looked distraught. But at least he didn't pass out. Maybe he was made of sterner stuff than Sean had believed.

Nevertheless, that strange compulsion to be nice came over Sean again. Fatal when dealing with interns, who needed to be toughened up not coddled. “It’s nothing, Elijah,” Sean said gruffly. “Now explain what you’re doing. Last I knew we were in the business of publishing newspapers, not treating the sick.”

“I heard about you running into the door and getting a black eye, sir, so while you were meeting with Mr. Mortensen, I went to the pharmacy across the street and picked up a few things I thought you might need,” Elijah explained earnestly. “Ice packs, arnica gel, and pain relievers. I wasn’t sure if you prefer aspirin, acetaminophen or ibuprofen, so I bought all three.” He indicated three plastic bottles set in a tidy row along the edge of Seanâ€™s overcrowded desk.

Well, at least two people had sympathy for his plight, thought Sean, recalling how Medusa Man had abjured him to ice his cheek, right before kissing him. He found himself staring at Elijah's mouth, which was, come to think of it, not dissimilar in shape to the superhero in training's. He had a sudden strange compunction to ask Elijah to show him his front teeth, to check if there was a noticeable gap between them.

The fuck? That punch must have addled his brain.

"Mr. Astin? Are you alright?" Elijah asked.

Sean raised his gaze and thought he caught a fleeting glimpse of amusement, of all things, in his assistant's eyes. Okay, definitely addled, he decided, giving his head a little shake to clear it and immediately regretting it.

"I'll take some of that Motrin," Sean said.

Elijah reached for the middle bottle, but inadvertently hit a stack of computer printouts with his arm. The papers went flying, knocking over the first bottle, which domino-fashion took out the other two, and pills and papers spilled across the carpet.

"Oh f- golly," Elijah exclaimed, lunging forward in a belated attempt to stop the mini-disaster.  
F'golly? These mid-western types had the weirdest sayings, Sean thought. "Look, just leave it, Elijah. Let's go."

"But Mr. Astin, you haven’t taken your Motrin," Elijah protested. He was on his hands and knees again, as he had been in the morgue the previous morning, groping for the spilled pills and presenting Sean with another unobstructed view of his shapely butt. It was too much.

"Elijah," he barked, "get up. _Now_."

"Yes, sir." As Elijah scrambled to his feet, Sean became aware that those in the adjacent cubicles were watching this byplay with varying levels of hilarity. Casually, he gathered up a fistful of rubber bands, and the laughter was instantly snuffed out like a candle while everyone stared fixedly at his or her computer screen as if doing an impression of Medusa Man.

Satisfied, Sean dropped the rubber bands and started walking, without waiting for Elijah.

"Where are we going?" Elijah panted, catching him up by the elevators.

"For a drive," replied Sean, punching the down button with an impatient forefinger. "There are some things I need to tell you, and I want it to be in private."

"Oh." Elijah opened his mouth, shut it again, and held out his hand. Four pills of varying colors and shapes sat in the palm, along with bits of gray carpet fuzz and what might have been Dorito crumbs. "Here, sir, I brought these for you."

Were you supposed to mix Excedrin, Tylenol and Motrin? Sean wondered. Oh, what the fuck. It couldn't be worse than the Dunkin' Donuts and cold Domino's pizza he frequently had for breakfast. As the elevator dinged and the doors opened, Sean took the pills, blew the fuzz and crumbs off them, popped them in his mouth and swallowed.

~*~

The parking garage was quiet, with no evidence remaining of the events of the previous night. As Sean unlocked his Nissan and climbed in, he decided that Viggo could hardly be blamed for his skepticism. In the clear light of day, it did seem pretty incredible. But it had happened. It had indubitably happened. All he had to do was look in the rear view mirror at his face.

_All you have to do is recall Medusa Man's kiss_ , his unhelpful brain reminded him.

Shit.

"Buckle up, Elijah," Sean said, but it came out as a decided snap, and he immediately felt ashamed of himself. "Please," he added.

"Yes, sir," Elijah replied meekly, and fastened his seatbelt.

Tooling along Main Street with the windows down and a fresh breeze blowing, Sean's mood started to lift. Or maybe it was the triumvirate of painkillers coursing through his system that made the difference. Whatever the reason, the sun shone brighter and his innate optimism reasserted itself. Once more he could see that shiny gold Pulitzer medallion gleaming on the mantelpiece.

"Mr. Astin," said Elijah, who, seeming to sense Sean's abstraction, hadn’t spoken since they left the _Standard_ ’s parking lot, "what is it you want to tell me?"

“About my face,” Sean replied. “The fact is, I didn't run into a door, Elijah."

"You didn't?"

Though he was staring at the road in front of him, Sean could feel those enormous blue eyes behind their horn-rimmed glasses fixed on him, almost like a palpable touch. "You heard about the guys they found tied up in the garage?" he asked.

"Yes, I did. Everyone's been talking about it."

"Well, they were members of that bastard Noble's gang of Merry Men, and they were lying in wait for me when I left to go home last night. One of them did this." He pointed at his face.

"Oh my gosh," Elijah exclaimed. "And you managed to subdue them and tie them up all by yourself? Wow."

He’d been wrong. His hero-worshipping young assistant _did_ believe he was capable of it. Sean's cheeks actually heated up at the undeserved credit, because, okay, it was flattering as hell. And it was tempting as hell to _let_ him believe it, but he had to give credit where credit was due.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m afraid not . I didn’t stand a chance. No, it was Medusa Man. He came to my rescue again."

"Wow," Elijah said again, and Sean was gratified to hear not the slightest hint of doubt in Elijah's voice. Unlike Viggo, Elijah believed.

"Yeah, it was pretty amazing, let me tell you. He's only a little guy, like you, but he laid those goons out cold." Sean replayed the scene in his mind, marveling again at the lightning speed of Medusa-man-to-be's hands and feet as he whirled and kicked and hit. "I wish you could have seen him, Elijah."

"Me, too," Elijah said in heartfelt tones.

"I promise, one of these days you will see him," said Sean. "And meet him. Because we're going to track him down, interview him and introduce him to the world. I'm going to make Viggo eat his words."

"Do you mean Mr. Mortensen?"

Sean sighed. "That's right. You see, I decided it was time to let him in on the secret, Elijah, but he didn't believe me. He thinks Medusa Man is one of those Real Life Superheroes."

A strangled noise came from Elijah. Sean glanced at him in surprise to discover his face contorted into a strange grimace, as if he were in pain. The grimace allowed Sean an unobstructed view of his teeth for the first time, and he was obscurely relieved to see that there was no visible gap between the two front ones.

“You okay?” he asked.

But before Elijah could answer, something occurred to divert Sean’s attention from Viggo and RLSHs. A bee flew in the driver’s side window. Not a friendly, jolly bumblebee, but a wasp. A yellowjacket.

"Fuck!" Sean exclaimed.

"What's wrong?" said Elijah.

"A bee, that's what. I'm highly allergic." Like Violet Rumble's sneeze-inducing cats and the bloodthirsty mosquitoes, the bee showed a definite predilection for Sean's company, buzzing around his face. He badly wanted to bat at it, but he knew better. That just pissed them off, and an angry wasp was more apt to sting.

So he remained rigid and sweating bullets, hoping the bee would get blown back out the window the way he came in. Only no such luck happened. Instead the bee landed on the back of his right hand that was gripping the steering wheel. "Oh shit. Ohshitohshitohshitohshit! If he stings me, I'm fucked. I don't have an epipen with me."

Sean heard a click as Elijah unbuckled his seatbelt. "Don't worry, Mr. Astin, I'll get him," the young man said.

"Elijah, I don't think that's a good idea," Sean said, envisioning the crash that would inevitably follow any attempt by his bumbling assistant to 'help' him. It was hard enough to focus on his driving as it was, and there was no place along this busy stretch of road to pull over.

"It'll be all right, sir," Elijah said, leaning across the console.

The bee, having settled on Sean's hand, seemed in no hurry to go anywhere, but remained right where it was. Maybe it was sick, Sean thought hopefully. A sick bee wasn't likely to sting, was it?

A hand appeared in Sean's peripheral vision. Elijah's hand, holding one of those tissues of which he seemed to have a limitless supply in his backpack. Sean held his breath and prayed as Elijah's hand hovered over the bee. A large cluster of pedestrians was gathered on the sidewalk up ahead and he had no desire to lose control of the car and go careening into them. A trickle of sweat ran down his temple. He might stay cool as a cucumber when confronted with Noble's goons, but bees made him freak.

"Elijah," he began, but then, very gently and without the slightest mishap, Elijah gathered the bee into the tissue, and released it out the passenger side window.

"It's okay, Mr. Astin. He’s gone now," Elijah said in a soothing voice.

Sean spied a fire hydrant and pulled alongside it. He put the car in park and fumbled for the blue MEMBER OF THE PRESS sign that he kept under the seat. He drew it out and stuck it on the dashboard then went limp with relief. His hands, he noticed, were trembling slightly. But with the clarity that arose in moments of intense emotion, he realized that his condition wasn't entirely attributable to his terror of getting stung by a bee.

Hot damn, but Elijah smelled fantastic, he thought. Whatever his aftershave was, it had a hint of lavender and he'd always found lavender to be a total turn on. And his body pressed against Sean's as he reached for the bee had been warm and surprisingly firm.

Fuck. Fuckity fuckity fuck. Sean lowered his forehead until it rested against the steering wheel and nearly moaned aloud. How could he be attracted to both Medusa Man and Elijah? No two guys could possibly be more dissimilar, the one potty-mouthed and exuberant, the other polite as a maiden aunt and timid as a mouse. But he was. Fuck. Since the time early on in his career when he’d stupidly fallen for an informant who turned out to be double-crossing him, Sean had carefully avoided emotional entanglements on the job. It was a recipe for disaster and now here he was baking a double layer cake.

“Mr. Astin, something’s going on over there,” Elijah said, interrupting his reverie.

Sean raised his head. Elijah was pointing up the street at the crowd Sean had noticed earlier gathered on the sidewalk. Heads were tilted back as the people stared up at something that Sean couldn’t see from his vantage point sitting in the car. Sirens wailed and even as he watched, several police cars screeched to a halt followed by an ambulance.

Every tiny hair on the back of Sean's neck stood at attention; a newsworthy story was unfolding and he was on the scene to cover it.

“Come on,” Sean said, and on the words he was out of the car and moving in the direction of the crowd.

“Oh my god, he’s going to jump!” someone screamed. 

Behind him, Sean heard Elijah gasp. Sean saw a man with disheveled blond hair and wearing only boxers and a white tee shirt on the roof of what appeared to be an apartment building. He was standing on the parapet, looking down, and he had his arms slightly out to the sides as if he was indeed preparing to jump.

“Everybody get back,” a police officer shouted, and the crowd shuffled backward, away from the building. Several police officers ran up the stairs of the apartment building and disappeared inside, while others brought out a safety net.

Sean pushed his way to the forefront of the crowd with Elijah close behind him.

“Please, sir, stay back,” the police officer said to him.

Sean pulled out his I.D. badge. “Sean Astin, the _Evening Standard_ ,” he said, flashing the badge at the officer, whose own badge, pinned to his dark blue uniform shirt, read ‘Sgt. Boyd’.

Sean was legend in the police department, especially after busting Noble’s drug cartel, and he had several good friends, as well as a couple of informants, on the force. That his name was known to Sergeant Boyd was immediately apparent. An almost awed expression appeared on the officer's face.

“All right, Mr. Astin, but don’t get too close. We don’t want anyone getting injured.”

"Thanks, Sergeant."

Like everyone else, Sean’s attention was riveted to the man on the parapet. Shortly, two officers, no doubt specially trained in how to deal with these situations, appeared on the roof and took up positions on either side of him, at a little distance.

They started talking to him, and though Sean couldn’t make out what they were saying, that it wasn’t having any effect was evident. The man kept shaking his head in negation, and every time they tried to move closer, he tensed and raised his arms higher and they quickly backed away.

The standoff continued for some minutes, and in the meantime vans from the three local news stations arrived and started broadcasting the drama, and a helicopter appeared and circled noisily overhead.

It seemed to Sean that finally the officers were making progress, edging closer without the man getting more agitated. With luck they would talk him safely down off the parapet and get him the help he needed.

But then with startling abruptness it all went wrong. One of the officers, clearly judging the situation under control, reached out to take the man’s arm. The effect was like the snapping of a chain.

“No!” he screamed so loudly that he could be heard over the _whap whap whap_ of the helicopter. "Don't touch me! Don't touch me!"

To Sean's horror, he ran along the parapet to the corner of the building and without hesitation leaped into space, instead of jumping from where he stood and giving the officers with the safety net a chance to catch him.

Screams and shouts rang out from the crowd... and just as abruptly they were silenced, as if some cosmic mute button had been hit. Everyone - officers, reporters and citizens alike - stared in utter shock as the man stopped falling, simply stopped in midair, suspended rigidly motionless about ten feet from the ground.

Sean stared in dumbfounded amazement, too, but for a different reason. Medusa Man. It _had_ to be Medusa Man, he thought.

The officers with the safety net were the first to recover their wits, running over to reposition the net beneath the frozen form. The moment they had the net in place, the man finished falling as if an invisible cord had been cut, landing squarely in the middle of the net.

A hysterical babble of talk erupted as people turned to each other, saying incredulously, “Oh my god, did you see that? He was frozen in midair.”

Sean didn’t observe what happened to the man after that because he was too busy searching the crowd frantically for a slender young man in a red beauty parlor cape and sunglasses with orange rims. Of all those present, only Sean understood exactly what had occurred. The young superhero in training had saved yet another life. And Sean was determined to find him.

“Elijah,” he hissed urgently, turning to his assistant. “Medusa Man is here somewhere - he has to be. We’ve got to find him.”  
  
Elijah didn't seem to hear him. He was staring fixedly at the man who had jumped, now surrounded by police and paramedics, and his face was even paler than usual. Shock, Sean judged. But he didn't have time to worry about the effect of what had happened on Elijah. He needed him.

Grasping Elijah's shoulder, Sean shook him, not gently. "Elijah, listen to me. You have to help me find Medusa Man. You know what to look for: a guy about your size wearing a red plastic cape and sunglasses with orange frames."

Elijah still didn't react, so Sean gave him an impatient shove. "Get going! Now!" he barked.  
Like one waking from a dream, or a nightmare, Elijah started, mumbled something that might have been 'okay', and stumbled off. Sean headed in the opposite direction. He pushed through the crowd, hoping for a glimpse of red plastic, but saw nothing. He ran up and down the block, searched the other side of the street, peered in trees, storefronts, scanned the surrounding buildings, even looked in parked cars. But it was an exercise in futility. There was no sign of the superhero in training anywhere.

He espied Elijah across the street and went to join him. "Any luck?" he asked, knowing the answer before he spoke.

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Astin," Elijah replied, sounding subdued.

"Damn," Sean said, and then he sighed. "I expect he took off as soon as he was done. Superheroes in training are supposed to stay unnoticed. Damn," he repeated, tempted to use a stronger swear word, but not wanting to shock Elijah any more than he already was. "But we're not done, Elijah. I want to interview as many people as I can while events are still fresh in their minds. Let's get going."

The process took a while. Most people had lingered, and they were not only willing but eager to talk to a reporter about the mysterious happenings. By the time Sean was done, his notebook was nearly full, he had writer's cramp, and not a single person had mentioned seeing a young man in a red plastic beauty parlor cape and sunglasses with orange frames. It was beyond frustrating.

"I think we've gotten all the useful information we can for now, Elijah," he said, closing his notebook and pocketing it. "But he might show up in the news station videos, so I'm not giving up hope just yet. Well, we better head back to the _Standard_ now. I need to write up my report and file it. You should do one, too. It'll be good practice for you. I'll read it over and critique it for you."

"All right, Mr. Astin," Elijah said, but he still sounded subdued.

"Your first time seeing something like this?" Sean asked quietly, not meaning the man frozen in midair, but his despairing jump from the parapet.

Elijah nodded. "Why would someone want to kill himself like that?" he asked.

Sean's heart smote him. He'd covered other such stories in his career, some that had ended in death. While you never grew hardened to human suffering and despair, you learned to distance yourself from it so as to do your job: reporting the news. He'd forgotten the visceral horror and the confusion he'd felt the first time he'd witnessed such a tragedy.

"I can't answer that question," Sean said. "No one seems to know what drove him to try and take his life, at least not yet. There can be a lot of different reasons why he believed it was the only answer to his problems. The important thing to remember, Elijah, is that he didn't succeed, and now he can get help and hopefully discover all the reasons there are to want to live." He took Elijah by the shoulder, not roughly as earlier, but very gently, and said, "Tell you what, after we're done at the _Standard_ how about we go get something to eat. I don't know about you, but I could use a good meal and a couple of beers." A thought struck him. "Um, you are old enough to drink legally, I hope."

At that Elijah smiled, just a small smile, but it was enough. "I'm twenty-two, Mr. Astin." His enormous blue eyes behind the ridiculous black horn-rimmed glasses grew misty. "Thank you for inviting me," he added shyly. "I'd like that."

It was on the tip of Sean's tongue to ask Elijah to call him 'Sean', but he restrained himself. He was already treading on dangerous ground by asking Elijah to have dinner with him, something he normally would never have done with an intern. But Elijah brought out protective instincts that Sean hadn't even known he possessed. Hell, he wanted to pull the young man into his arms, hold him close and promise him that everything would be all right, and for a crusty, cynical investigative journalist that was totally fucked up. So instead he dropped his hand from Elijah's shoulder and started walking toward the car.

When they got back to the Nissan, Sean discovered a parking ticket tucked under the windshield wiper. He pulled it out, ripped it in two and tossed it in a nearby trash can. It wasn't much, but it helped.


End file.
